Magazine Review: Rue Morgue Magazine – Issue 92

This year seems to be big on vampires. In fact vampires I believe sort of rear there ugly heads in cycles that sort of fluctuate with the state of the industry. However as much recycling as has been, it never seems to fade from public eye and interest. The latest from Rue morgue sports a illustration of the book “The Strain” which if you’ve been living in a well is the new release from authors Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. Not only an intriguing cover but a full feature article interview with the 2 writing talents. With “Twilight, “True Blood”,” Let the Right one In” and others the strain is gearing up to make its mark as well into the vampire circle frenzy. Toro talks about his plans for the material and the networks loony ways of tying to turn it into something it isn’t. With the intention of it being a trilogy of books I’m betting that its only a matter of time before this finds its way ito motion picture representation. In any case its good to see talented minds at work.

Which brings up another contribute to the genre. David Wellington, is an author also featured who has written several vampire genre books. He is interviewed about his creations which focus more on vicious domineering vampires than the tired, romantic lost souls vampire. Interestingly enough he comments on there relation to a caterpillar transformation which metamorphs into liquid and then to a butterfly. I never tire of the inventiveness these authors bring to the vampire genre table. great stuff!

Travis Louie is an artist with a rather classics meets sideshow Alice in Wonderland kind of style. His fantastic pieces are showcased that provide a soft, painted traditional approach to monsters in portraits. His book “Curiosities” is discussed as well as his wonderful talent for bringing something rather different to the horror / fantasy table.

NollyWood Nightmares takes a much needed look at horror films within Nigeria. The article is fascinating in itself in the fact that the film industry there is so prolific and plentiful. We learn that 100’s of films are generated locally . Each done at a rather modest budget of around $17-$23 thousand in a estimated output of about 2500 annually. Now it also goes into discussion about the quality being a bit clunky and strange …however I would assume that anyway’s. Different titles are discussed most with mediocre cover art. With so many titles though in production I would be interested to really dig into some to the of the ones that make there mark on the horror genre. Keep you eyes open on these ones!

Scary stories 101 – An article about the book of the same name. Michael Knost has put in the work to give back to the horror writer community per his new release. Knost talks about what it’s like to receive so much input from so many top notch horror writers. Chapters and highlights include “Starting in the wrong place”, “Submissions flaws that drive editors Nuts” and “Ttips about blending history and fiction”. All this and much more sounds to me like a book aspiring authors won’t want to wait on throwing down a few pennies!

It Came from Bowen’s Basement features a rather obscure title called “Death Bed – the bed that Eats”. With a title like that I’m almost compelled to seek this one out just for that fact alone. Though its a nice overview of the film that probably would easily fall under the radar if not. Chalk this one onto my list!

As always we get a nice overview of reviews on horror titles, both old and new. Some great reviews on upcoming books, games, comics and audio CD’s. I’ll confess to often looking deep into their book reviews section for cool titles to purchase. Heck, there’s so many books coming out on a monthly basis, the extra heads up is a great helper in that area.